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The new Acer Chromebook
November 12, 2012
Creating a
better, simpler
computer and making it available for everyone is at the core of the Chromebook vision. It’s exciting to see people using Chromebooks as the perfect additional computer in the home, and we continue to work with our partners to make them easy-to-use and more affordable. Today, we’re delighted that our partner Acer is introducing a new addition to the Chromebook family: the
new Acer C7 Chromebook
.
The new Acer C7 Chromebook delivers a hassle-free computing experience with speed, built-in security and the simplicity of automatic updates. It features a full-size keyboard, fully clickable trackpad, an extra bright 11.6-inch display and over 3.5 hours of battery life. Powered by an Intel Core processor, the Acer Chromebook is fast—boots up in 18 seconds, resumes instantly and high-definition videos play smoothly (yes, videos like
Gangnam Style in 1080p
, in case you’re one of the few left who hasn’t seen it). You can easily store your stuff on the Chromebook or in the cloud, with a 320GB hard drive and 100GB of free storage on Google Drive.*
As you’d expect from a Chromebook, it’s easy to share with others around the home. Moms, dads, siblings or even your roommate can all have separate accounts and simply log in to get things done. And because Chromebooks bring you the best of Google, if you use products like Gmail, Drive, Maps, YouTube and Google+, your stuff is always available and everything
just works
.
Starting tomorrow, the Acer Chromebook will be available for $199 in the U.S. on Google Play, BestBuy.com and rolling out this week in select Best Buy stores. In the U.K., it’s available on Google Play, Amazon UK, PC World and Currys. We’re working hard to bring it to more countries soon.
Together with Acer, it’s great to welcome the newest addition to the Chromebook family. We hope it will make a great additional computer for your family, too.
New Chromebooks
, for everyone.
Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps
*You will have 100 GB of free storage for 2 years, starting on the date you redeem the offer on eligible Chrome devices.
Update
11/15:
The latest update for the Acer C7 Chromebook enhances battery life to 4 hours. You should get this update when you open your computer for the first time. Thanks to auto-updates, you already have a better computer than the one you bought.
(Cross-posted on the
Chrome Blog
)
JAM with Chrome: Play music live with your friends online
November 8, 2012
If you ever dreamed of playing in a band, now’s your chance to be a rock star.
JAM with Chrome
is an interactive web application that enables friends in different locations to play music together in the Chrome browser on their computers. No matter what your level of talent—from daydreaming air guitarist to music pro—you can JAM together in real time over the web.
When you enter the site, you can choose from a selection of 19 different instruments, from acoustic and bass guitars to drum kits and keyboards. Once you get playing, you can switch instruments as often and as many times as you like.
In the default “easy mode” you can experiment by clicking individual strings, drum pads or keys, or you can play around with the four different autoplay functions and let the machines do the work. Switch to “pro mode” to play any instrument using your keyboard.
Invite up to three friends in different locations to join your JAM via the sharing buttons on the site. Here’s “Keyboard Cat” jamming with his friends:
JAM with Chrome is a Chrome Experiment that uses the latest modern web technologies, including HTML5 features such as the Web Audio API, Websockets, Canvas and CSS3. For more detailed information on the technologies used, check out the
technology link
in the app.
Go on, get the band together at
jamwithchrome.com
.
Posted by Emma Turpin, Google Creative Lab
(Cross-posted from the
Chrome Blog
)
Marking the fall of the Iron Curtain
November 8, 2012
There are certain events in history that are momentous enough to make you remember where you were at the time. This Friday is the 23rd anniversary of one of those moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.
To mark this turning point in history, we’re releasing a collection of online exhibitions under the theme of
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
. Partners, including The DDR Museum in Berlin, Polish History Museum, Romanian broadcaster TVR and Getty Images, have created 13 exhibitions containing
documents
,
videos
and
photos
telling the stories behind how events unfolded.
Independent historians have also contributed their expertise. For example, Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, provides video commentary on events as part of his exhibition
The Fall of the Wall: Revelation, not Revolution
.
Some of the other exhibitions include:
Solidarity & the fall of The Iron Curtain
- the creation and evolution of the Solidarity trade union leading to Lech Walesa's election as President of Poland in 1990
Visions of Division
- Professor Patrick Major, a specialist in Cold War history, gives an account of life in a divided Germany and the everyday human cost of the Wall
Years of change
- diary of a fictitious author documenting events in Berlin such as the staged elections, the first protests and David Hasselhoff's concert at the wall
The Berlin Job
- a personal account of life in East Berlin made by independent curator Peter Millar, one of the only non-German correspondents in East Berlin in the 1980s
Romanian Revolution
- a series of four exhibitions containing more than 50 videos documenting the live TV transmission of the overthrow of Romanian dictator Ceausescu
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
is the latest chapter in the work of the Google Cultural Institute, following the launch last month of
42 online historical exhibitions
telling the stories behind major events of the last century. You can explore all the exhibitions on
www.google.com/culturalinstitute
and follow us on
our Google+ page
.
If you’re a partner interested in working with the Google Cultural Institute to turn your archives into online exhibitions, we’d love to hear from you—please fill out this
form
.
Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Google Cultural Institute
(Cross-posted from the
Google Europe blog
)
AMBER Alerts for missing children now in Google Search and Maps
October 31, 2012
Today we are launching AMBER Alerts coordinated by
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
(NCMEC) in the
Google Public Alerts
platform. Public Alerts are designed to bring you emergency alerts when and where they’re relevant to you, and AMBER Alerts aim to help bring abducted children home safely.
If you’re using
Google Search
or
Maps
on desktop and mobile you’ll see an AMBER Alert if you search for related information in a particular location where a child has recently been abducted and an alert was issued. You’ll also see an alert if you conduct a targeted search for the situation. By increasing the availability of these alerts through our services, we hope that more people will assist in the search for children featured in AMBER Alerts and that the rates of safe recovery will rise.
AMBER Alerts will provide information about the abducted child and any other details about the case as they become available. Additional details could include the make and model of the vehicle he/she was abducted in or information about the alleged abductor.
Screenshot for a test version of an AMBER alert
The US Department of Justice’s
AMBER Alert™ Program
is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies and others to engage the entire community in the most serious child-abduction cases. We are working with NCMEC, who will provide the AMBER Alert data to Google and make it possible to display information in Public Alerts.
We’re working closely with
Missing Children Europe
and the
Canadian Centre for Child Protection
to try and scale this service to more countries. We’ll keep exploring different ways to improve child protection through innovative technologies, like what has been used to
reduce exploitation
and
improve reporting
to NCMEC.
Posted by Phil Coakley, software engineer, Google Public Alerts team
Celebrating Leonardo Torres-Quevedo, Spanish inventor of the world’s first computer game
October 31, 2012
What does a cable car in Niagara Falls have to do with the world’s first chess-playing machine? Surprisingly, both were inventions of Spanish civil engineer
Leonardo Torres-Quevedo
. Next week, as part of
our ongoing effort
to celebrate Europe’s computing heritage, we’re commemorating Torres-Quevedo’s legacy and his remarkable machine—
"El Ajedrecista"
(in English, "The Chess Player")—in partnership with the
Telecommunication Engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid.
Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons
Torres-Quevedo’s inventions span many fields. He was the second in the world to
demonstrate wireless remote control
, beaten to the post only by
Nikola
Tesla
. His
designs for airships
were used by both the French and British during WWI. He was a global leader in cable car design, creating the “
Spanish aero car
” over the Niagara Whirlpool which,
nearly a century on
, remains a tourist attraction. However, his most remarkable achievements were in the field of automation, developing machines that are antecedents to what we now call computers and robots.
Torres-Quevedo’s ambitions were bold. As
Scientific American
proclaimed in 1915
: “He would substitute machinery for the human mind.” In the 1890s, Torres-Quevedo built a
series of mechanical devices
that solved algebraic equations. In 1920 he wowed a Paris audience with an electromechanical
arithmometer
with a typewriter attachment. You simply typed a formula—say, “24x48”—and the machine would calculate and automatically type the answer “=1152” in reply.
But El Ajedrecista, an algorithmically powered machine that could play an end-game of chess against a human opponent completely automatically, is his most notable creation. Although it’s a far cry from
Deep Blue
, El Ajedrecista can lay claim to being the world’s first (analog) computer game.
.
Photos thanks to
Museo Torres Quevedo
The machine didn’t just calculate its moves—it had mechanical arms that physically moved its pieces, in the form of electrical jacks, across a grid. In later models the arm mechanism was replaced by magnets, and play took place on a more ordinary-looking chess board. You couldn’t cheat the machine as it could spot illegal moves; and you couldn’t win, as the game always started at a point (machine’s King and Rook versus human’s King) from which the
machine could never lose
.
In honor of El Ajedrecista’s 100th birthday, we’re working with the
Telecommunication Engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid
to stage a conference commemorating Torres-Quevedo’s legacy. The
conference
, taking place on November 7, will feature lectures and panel discussions, as well as an exhibition of Torres-Quevedo’s devices—including El Ajedrecista itself. Attendance is free—if you want to join us,
request an invitation
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Google’s most advanced voice search has arrived on iOS
October 30, 2012
When you have a question, finding the answer should be effortless—wherever you are and whatever device you’re using. The new Google Search app for iPhone and iPad helps you to do just that with enhanced voice search that answers any question with the comprehensive Google search results you know and love.
Fast and accurate voice recognition technology enables Google to understand exactly what you’re saying. Getting an answer is as simple as tapping on the microphone icon and asking a question like, “Is United Airlines flight 318 on time?” Your words appear as you speak, you get your answer immediately and—if it’s short and quick, like the status and departure time of your flight—Google tells you the answer aloud.
You can get answers to an increasingly wide variety of questions thanks to
Knowledge Graph
, which gives our search technology an understanding of people, places and things in the real world. Here are a few of the questions that Google can answer:
“What does Yankee Stadium look like?” Google will show you hundreds of pictures instantly.
“Play me a trailer of the upcoming James Bond movie.” The trailer starts playing immediately right within Google Search.
“When does daylight savings time end?” The answer will appear above the search results, so you can set your clock without having to click on a link.
“Who’s in the cast of The Office?” See a complete cast list and find out who made you crack up last night.
Download the Google Search App
on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and find out how much wood a woodchuck would chuck (if a woodchuck could chuck wood).
Posted by Kenneth Bongort, Engineer, Google Search
More Art Project online for you to explore
October 30, 2012
Back in April we
announced
a major expansion of the Google Art Project. Since then 15 million people have explored the paintings, sculptures, street art and photographs contributed by our partners. From today the number of treasures you can view is increasing by more than 10% as 29
new art organizations
from 14 countries bring their collections online.
A wide range of global institutions, large and small, well-known and less traditional, are represented. Explore contemporary works at the
Istanbul Modern Art Museum
, admire works from the
Art Gallery of South Australia
(who have contributed almost 600 objects) and access the treasures of the famous
Museum of Palazzo Vecchio
in Italy and
Princeton University
. This round has also seen contributions from more unusual sources including a collection from the
National Ballet of Canada
,
pre-Columbian art from Peru
and
decorative arts from China
.
Now that the total number of objects online is more than 35,000, we've turned our attention towards thinking of different ways for you to experience the collections.
The first is a great educational tool for art students, enthusiasts or those who are simply curious. A “Compare” button has been added to the toolbar on the left of each painting. This allows you to examine two pieces of artwork side-by-side to look at how an artist’s style evolved over time, connect trends across cultures or delve deeply into two parts of the same work. Here's an
example
: place an early sketch of
Winslow Homer's
'The Life Line'
from the
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
next to
the completed painting
from the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
. Comparing them in this way allows you to see how the artist's vision altered (or not) over the life of the work.
Beyond following us and discussing great art on our
Google+ page
, we have also created a
Hangout
app within the Art Project so that you can share your favorite collections and perhaps give your friends a personal guided tour. If there is a budding museum guide or an art critic within any of you it can finally be unleashed! Watch this video to see how it works.
Around 180 partners have contributed their works to the Art Project so far, more than 300,000 of you have created your own online galleries and we've had more than 15 million visitors since our last launch in April. The cultural community has invested great time and effort to bring these masterpieces online.
Watch this space
for more to come.
Posted by Piotr Adamczyk, Google Art Project
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